short animations (focus: physical movement) [links fixed]

[zdk1]

[EDIT] links are fixed, thanks for pointing that out.

Greetings, I haven't been using blender that much this past semester, trying to transition to college etc..

If anyone remembers, a while back I said I'd do a series of short animations to practice getting basic movements to look fluid.

this is the first new thing I've done in a while. It started as a test of building a human body rig from scratch. so, unlike the previous animations I posted, this was done on a rig that I built from scratch, although it doesn't really look it since its still a (slightly different) block proxy model.

more like and "i'm back" statement than a full entry but here you go.

~750 kB
www.princeton.edu/~ddkim/anims/dashandjump.mov

as a bonus, I also have another one. I took a freshman seminar on animation this semester, and, while it wasn't very deep (most had no experience), it was a lot of fun and the class finished two short animations. (a couple other non 3d stuff)
For one of them, the character was a little girl who was supposed to be fairly cute. Of course, I thought it would be funny if I had her do some martial arts so with permission I did . (I'm not sure If I can show the actual animations our class did yet, I'll have to ask the groups if they want to show them)

The model was created by a classmate and this was practically one of her first models. The main body rigging was done under my supervision and I also rigged the dress. Only small tweaks to the model for animation purposes (loops around joints etc).

~1 MB
www.princeton.edu/~ddkim/anims/sallywhap.mov


I'm not going to go back and change these but any comments and crits would be much appreciated for future animations.


Also, for reference, here are some of the animations I posted at the beginning of this "series"
www.princeton.edu/~ddkim/anims/katashort.mov
www.princeton.edu/~ddkim/anims/blockfightmpeg4.mov

[yfkar.]

Very cool animations. Btw, all your links point to the same animation.

[frodo2975]

Your "katashort" link goes to the same file as the "blockfight" link. The movements looks good. It would be cool if had 2 guys and had them fight.

[youngbatcat]

Weee hee! What fun you be having at Princeton
http://www.princeton.edu/%7Eddkim/anims/0035_0585.avi

[henrymop]

Oh yeah! You made that cool bar fight animation. Your work is well done. I need to get started on animation!

Any tips or a rule of animation that might help us?

[zdk1]

Links are fixed now. cp'ing links and changing the name doesn't work (should have known).

hah, found the candyman clip did you? That was part of a simple stop motion animation I did with two others. The final has music and is slightly different.

Thanks for the encouragement so far. I'm not really sure what I could say in the way of tips, I mentioned before that mirrors are useful (a video camera would be better but I'm not that lucky). Also, a really random thing that helps me a bit is playing back the animation slower and faster than I animated it. eg: I usually animate fast motions waaaay too fast but its sometimes hard to pick up on exactly why it looks wrong. slowing it down lets you see that "oh, it looks much better slowed down by 2-4x"

check out the other, now correctly working links if you get a chance.

hopefully, I'll start putting together larger projects again. I kind of want to do another short film on a longer scale.
you may remember my "breaking in" project. That was a learning experience, not really planned and kind of sloppy in how it came together (actually, that brings up another tip, for your first real animation project, don't try to do a convincing 3-4 person fight scene.....although I do like that last kick )

I actually have space for it now:
www.princeton.edu/~ddkim/anims/breakingin.mov

whee, this is turning into a "hey look at all my old animations thread"

I do have ideas for actual shortfilms, no script/storyboard and only minimal work done so far so its not near ready for presentation or asking for additional people (which I may end up doing since as I envision them they need much more work than breaking in did)

In any case, for the present, a two person fight scene isn't a bad idea.

so, a tentative roadmap for future animations:
-physical character interaction (fighting?)
-acrobatics (jumps, flips, cartwheels)
-modelling, rigging, and animating an actual character.
-acting (emoting, dialogue) [this is going to be a rather large step]
-combination!!!! (maybe action with dialogue)

the second half of that list is pretty far away. Once I get a handle on those subjects I'll try tying them together in a really small shortfilm. An then maybe I'll start working on the ones I really want to do (I want to make them good which is why I'm waiting)

[DeeVad]

You have a hard work of detail in your animations and your character have good motions and come to life . I want to congrats you of it , you have a real talent of animator.
Good luck for your future road map and continu to share your exellent work on this forum, I will be happy to see your futures promissing evolutions.
-David

[deltawing]

zdk1 - thanks for sharing your anim. course material. This is motivational for those trying to "move things" in an interesting way. I think your work has a unique style and showing it...like other animators that offer their projects on this board... provides insight. I look forward to seeing more of your art.

[xrqlz]

is there any chance of making the rig for those block people availible? I would love to disect it and see how it works.

XrQLz